The World Desalination and Reuse Congress of the International Desalination Association (IDA World Congress 2017) was held in Sao Paulo from October 15 to 20. ECOAGUA has participated in this important event. Noemi Sanchez, Project Director of Ecoagua has made an oral presentation in the session dedicated to energy efficiency in seawater desalination and has been invited by the IDA to be part of the Congress Awards Committee.
The paper is the result of research work developed by ECOAGUA always with the motivation to introduce technical innovations in the design of the desalination process with the aim of improving the energy efficiency of the desalination plants. In this case the presentation presents a new way of achieving energy savings in the process, not yet considered in the global desalination market. It is therefore an innovation in the process, using technology and equipment already existing in the market. The paper describes an alternative way to control the production of a desalination plant compared to the usual ones, installing a Francis turbine to recover the unused pressure when the operating conditions of the plant change. With this solution, applied for large sized racks, significant savings are obtained in CAPEX; and OPEX similar to those achieved with the installation of variable frequency drives in the high pressure pump or in the booster upstream of the high pressure pumps.
The IDA World Congress is the world’s leading event in the field of desalination and water reuse. In addition to private companies, the participants include public entities, researchers, consultants, academics, manufacturers and suppliers of systems and components. Since the first time it was held in 1985, the IDA World Congress offers its attendees the opportunity to broaden their knowledge of current and emerging desalination and reuse technologies, as well as being a meeting point for the market.